<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>blooming up from the ground by sayonide</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27469975">blooming up from the ground</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/sayonide/pseuds/sayonide'>sayonide</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>3 rounds and a sound [9]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>RWBY</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Child Neglect, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Qrow Branwen (mentioned) - Freeform, Taiyang Xiao Long (mentioned) - Freeform</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 18:53:06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,907</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27469975</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/sayonide/pseuds/sayonide</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Raven left. Summer died. Tai withdrew. Qrow was stuck on mission after mission. </p>
<p>In their absence was a little girl, trying to raise a baby.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Ruby Rose &amp; Yang Xiao Long</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>3 rounds and a sound [9]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2002933</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>66</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>blooming up from the ground</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>neglect tag is there just in case, as that's very nearly the kind of childhood that yang remembers.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When Yang was born, her birth mother, Raven, left her on the steps of their cabin and walked away. When she was 5, her real mother, Summer, died. And before she was even 6, before she could properly process everything, her father withdrew into himself, leaving her to take care of herself and her baby sister.</p>
<p>Ruby would look up at her, almost halfway to 4, and ask her where mama went, and why daddy never played with her anymore, and Yang became well versed in the art of shoving down her tears to assure her that everything would be okay. She started forcing herself awake earlier than normal to make breakfast, begging Qrow to teach her whatever recipes he deemed safe enough for someone her age to make, usually ending up just putting jam on bread and presenting it to Ruby as cheerfully as she could make it seem. </p>
<p>Through the haze of making herself grow up, the only positive is Ruby. Watching Ruby grow up, start making her own jam on bread, going to school and clinging to Yang every morning. Eventually, when they're old enough that Qrow decides they can be allowed around fire, he teaches Yang how to make pancakes. She makes them every morning, tossing them onto a plate already at Ruby's usual seat. Eventually, she teaches Ruby the recipe, the two of them waking up at the crack of dawn to race to the kitchen and make pancakes. </p>
<p>It almost feels like how it used to be, just like she'd promised Ruby every day when they were smaller. She ignores the empty seats, and the applications that they're not allowed to use yet, in favour of lifting Ruby into the air and telling her, "See? I told you, it all turns out fine in the end."</p>
<p>The older they get, the more protective Yang gets, because the more protective she needs to be. Ruby's more of a loner than not at their school, and bullies are a bigger problem than either of them had anticipated. </p>
<p>So Yang makes it her personal mission to beat up as many of them as possible. When the bullies flee, Ruby always asks if they'll be alright, and, well, Yang's a lot of thing. Violent, unstable, full of abandonment issues, probably needing of therapy for just about every day of her 12 years of life since Summer died, but she'd sacrifice herself a hundred times over before letting herself be a bad older sister.</p>
<p>So she pulls Ruby into a side hug, walks her to class, and laughs it off. "Of course," she says. "Uncle Qrow always says to not hurt non-Grimm opponents, right? I can't hurt them, they may be meanies, but they're definitely not Grimm." Ruby accepts her reassurances every time without question, and Yang makes sure to stick close to her after the fourth time it happens, if just to keep some degree of innocence in Ruby. Because she'll never forgive Tai for leaving Yang to be the one to inform her that no, Summer's no coming back. </p>
<p>When Yang gets accepted to Beacon, she's almost relieved, and then immediately kicks herself for feeling that way. She's been a mom for almost as long as she can remember by now, and just the idea of returning to the role of just another student she sees in the hallway makes her damn near drool. It's a chance of dropping what she's been too reluctant to call a burden, but every instinct she'd been training for over a decade comes out to scream at her for even <em>thinking</em> of abandoning Ruby. She knows what abandonment feels like, and though she knows Ruby would be nothing but thrilled, the idea of leaving her behind is too much to bear. </p>
<p>So she lies until she can't. Despite everything, she can't bear to throw out the acceptance letter, choosing to hide it under her mattress like it was a porno magazine instead of what could be her greatest accomplishment. </p>
<p>It comes out the day Qrow visits and decides to clean every room in the house. He slides downstairs during lunch, when the three of them are sitting around eating pancake sandwiches - sandwiches, but with pancakes instead of bread - and waves the envelope in the air.</p>
<p>"When were you planning to tell us about this?" He drawls, and Yang freezes up in horror as Ruby lets out a gasp.</p>
<p>"Yang!" She yells, and dashes over to snatch it up. "You got into Beacon? When? Why didn't you say anything? This is incredible!"</p>
<p>"I wasn't going to accept," she mutters, glaring at Qrow. He just takes another sip from his flask, shooting a look at her. </p>
<p>"Well, you better," he says. "This is an incredible opportunity, especially with your grades."</p>
<p>She shoves the rest of her pancake sandwich into her mouth and stands up. With a final pat to Ruby's head, because she'd be lying if she ever could leave Ruby with the possibility of seeming angry at her, Yang rips the acceptance letter out of Qrow's hand, as if she can rip away her conviction that accepting and going to Beacon will do anything but destroy Ruby the same way that her parents had done to her. </p>
<p>When she gets upstairs, not for the first time, she wishes that someone, at least, had taken up the mantle of being an actual mother when they were small. Just to make everything easier, someone who could be there in the mornings or the nights or at least someone who was allowed to be around more than Qrow, who could make sure they were at least fed more than bread and pancakes and whatever happened to be for lunch at school. Someone who could sit and comfort Ruby, and let Yang let out her emotions and grieve like a 5 year old should've been allowed to. That maybe, that day out in the woods, Qrow had lied to her, and if she had just found Raven they could have had another mom. Even if she wasn't the same, they didn't need a supermom. Just a parent who could stick around and wasn't always off on mission or locked away or drunk or dead to the world or</p>
<p>Or a million other things that had been running through her mind for the past 10 years, every night when she went to bed or Ruby asked another question that she couldn't answer, when her friends at school asked to go to their house and then wondered how she could cook so well or at her relationship with her little sister. </p>
<p>She heads back downstairs a few minutes later, and they'd sent Ruby upstairs, and Tai had accepted her into Beacon. She drags them outside, demands what the hell they think they're doing, when Tai felt like he deserved a say in any part of their lives. They spend almost an hour talking her into it, and if she was anyone else she would've thanked them for doing the formal acceptance for her. But she's not anyone else. She's Yang Xiao Long and she's a big sister of someone who had never really had anyone consistent but her. </p>
<p>A few months later, Ruby gets into Beacon anyway. Most of her is relieved. Most of her thanks the Brothers themselves that she wouldn't have to leave Ruby behind. Besides, it feels like an accomplishment of her own. Her baby sister, the one she raised for the past decade, getting into an esteemed Huntsman academy two years early. </p>
<p>So just like before, she watches from the sidelines as Ruby befriends both the most incompetent student in their year and the most stuck-up, and becomes team leader of arguably one of the worst team to be stuck with. </p>
<p>She goes along with Ruby's plans, because they've never failed before, and watches her grow. When she loses her arm, it hurts. Losing Blake hurts more. But after her initial period of adjustment, the time that she's stuck at home with Tai, her only regret is that she ignored Ruby. So she goes to Raven, finds Weiss, and heads to Haven to apologize.</p>
<p>When she gets there, though, it's been a year since she's seen Ruby last. She has a year to make up for, but what she hasn't considered is that Ruby has had a year to grow. She's had a year to lead a team and grow on her own, outside of Yang's sight, and it becomes painfully obvious the first time Yang leaves training early to curl up in bed because some dumb thing reminded her of her arm, or of a bright red sword coming down, or Blake, or god fucking forbid her semblance activated in the wrong lighting and she's suddenly surrounded by smoke and every good memory in the cafeteria shattered around her. </p>
<p>Yang presses her face into the covers, promising herself five minutes of wallowing in her feelings before she gets up again. Before two of them can pass, Ruby's in the room, a hand on her back.</p>
<p>"Hey," she hears, and she automatically takes a breath and blinks to clear her eyes before turning around.</p>
<p>"Hey!" Yang responds, as cheerily as she can, but Ruby's not buying it. Instead, she's looking down, sitting at the edge of the bed.</p>
<p>Yang sits up, worried. If something's bothering Ruby, it's her job to make it go away, whether it requires punching, hugs, or both. This time, though, Ruby reaches over to grip her right hand - her <em>fake</em> hand - and looks up, dead serious.</p>
<p>"You can't push this down forever, Yang," she says, and there's an instinct there pushing Yang to laugh. </p>
<p>"What? Rubes, what are you talking about?"</p>
<p>Ruby just looks at her like she's stupid, and yeah, maybe she is, trying to trick her like that. It's hard sometimes, reminding herself that Ruby's not a baby anymore. </p>
<p>"I know you've been protecting me. But I'm 17 now. I walked from Patch to Haven. You don't <em>need</em> to do that, Yang," she says, interrupting Yang's mental distress and realization. "You lost a lot, in one night. But we're here now, and you don't have to be strong for everyone else anymore."</p>
<p>For a moment, a weird rush of pride comes over her. Ruby's grown up. She's essentially a successful leader of two teams. It's immediately followed by the realization that she'd raised Ruby on fairy tales, and hurries to respond before she can launch into a speech.</p>
<p>"You know, I say this a lot. But mom would be proud of you," she says, and Ruby's half-open mouth drops into a smile. </p>
<p>"She'd be proud of you, too," Ruby shoots back. "From everything I remember, and from what you told me. If she was supermom, you were the super<em>sis</em>."</p>
<p>Ruby's grown up, so much, and she didn't get to truly see some of it. But with all her childhood being spent with Summer's genes, Yang's minimal knowledge of care, and everything Qrow could give when he was given the chance to drop in, she turned out just a little more than good. It's the first time that Yang really gets a chance to step back and look at the person that Ruby had become, and she finds that she likes what she sees.</p>
<p>That night, Yang goes to bed and dreams of Summer again, and it doesn't hurt as much as it did before.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>let yourself have good things. be nice to yourself.</p>
<p>i wanna clarify that i don't have any negative feelings towards tai as a character or a person. this version of him is just easiest to write atm.</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>